WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. — Extraordinary Charities hosts nine non-profit organizations at its West Palm Beach venue. Each one collaborates and shares resources.
"With about 8,000 nonprofits in Palm Beach County, it really becomes, you know, kind of a battle for available funding. But we've really just tried to eliminate all of that competition and work together because experience has shown us that we can really do so much more together than we ever could individually," said Christine Raymond, the executive director of Extraordinary Charities.
Each organization helps a niche clientele from feeding the hungry and empowering underserved youth to people with developmental differences. There is even one charity, Morningday Community Solutions, that helps other charities find resources the reclaim unused inventory from retailers.
"Having a building like this is, it's controlled chaos most of the time, and sometimes it's uncontrolled chaos. You just never know what's going to be going on on a given day. Someday we'll be having movie nights. Some nights we'll be training assistance dogs. Somebody always eat somebody's leftovers in the community fridge. But it really is just a great way for each of us to help each other," said Raymond.
Raymond said the value of non-profits collaborating with each other should not be overlooked.
"I have to stress the value of collaboration. It always seems like something that should not be an afterthought. But for a lot of organizations, working with another organization just becomes more of a burden. But if they really examine what they can create in terms of efficiencies, it's really a way for us to eliminate some of the barriers to serving our clients in as many ways as we can," Raymond said.